"Ben Weaver - Brothers in Arms 03 - Patriots in Arms" - читать интересную книгу автора (Weaver Ben)

 The news reportsall that morning had focused on the treaty violations and on the possibility that
negotiations between the Colonial Alliance and Terran Alliances were about to break off. Nearly every
correspondent on Rexi-Calhoon wanted to scoop the story, and even as I boarded my skipshuttle,
bound for Rexicity and the capitol building, at least a dozen of them stood at the tarmac fence, hollering
questions. Bren Dublin, senior officer of my personal security team, warded them off in his usual baritone,
with about as much diplomacy as a man waving a particle rifle. “Colonel St. Andrew will issue a
statement to the media at his convenience—not yours!”

“What’s the matter, Bren?” I asked as he slammed the hatch and dropped his mammoth frame into the
jumpseat beside me.

“I don’t like these people,” he groaned, then scratched his graying beard. His tone turned deadly
serious. “You can’t trust them.”

Tat, Ysarm, and Jiggs, my other bodyguards, sat behind us, wriggling in their designer suits and probably
wishing I hadn’t asked them to look their very best. The three officers, all in their thirties, all South Point
graduates, had over forty years’ military experience between them, yet they, like Bren, had never seen
real combat. I hoped they never would.

“I’ll tell you why Bren doesn’t trust reporters,” said Tat, the tallest of the group, a dark-skinned bird of a
man with eyes nearly as small and definitely as keen. “He’s never told you about his ex.”

Bren gave Tat a fiery look that silenced the junior officer.

“I don’t know,” I began. “I’m not sure if you can trust them, but years ago a reporter saved my life.”

“Six-seven-niner, copy. Cleared for departure,” interrupted our pilot, who glanced back from the
cockpit, his head draped in the translucent energy bands of his communications skin. “Colonel St.
Andrew? ETA to the capitol building will be approximately nine minutes. Your tablet’s up and running, so
if there’s any news you care to look at, it’s there.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant, but today I don’t plan on watching the news—I plan on making it.”

“Yes, sir.”

With a hum and an appreciable rumble, the skipshuttle lifted off. As the G force drove me deeper into
my seat, I glanced through a window at the reporters, some of who were delivering remarks and
observations to their floatcams. I suspected that as they spoke, images of me boarding the shuttle were
beaming out to all nine hundred million people on Rexi-Calhoon and were also being tawted out to the
billions of others watching on all seventeen worlds and in the Sol system. That kind of media exposure
scared the hell out of me, but it came with the territory these days. I shivered and turned back to Bren,
thought of querying further about his ex, but his head hung low, his expression dark.

Ahead of us lay Rexicity, one of Rexi-Calhoon’s six primary colonies. It was situated fourteen hundred
kilometers south of Columbia Colony, and its skyscrapers rose up from an expansive valley to pierce a
mantle of brown haze. The downtown district reeked of something oily and burned, a stench that often
had me reaching for my breather.

“Aw, shit, look at that,” said Bren, cocking a thumb at his window. Just off our starboard wing streaked
two news shuttles, their logos flashing on their fuselages. “They want to capture every moment—even our